The Great Music of Talkbeer - 2007

Each Wednesday (typically) we'll introduce a new year from 1958 through 2017. Each member selects an album released in that year with a few lines (or more) on why you picked it/enjoy it. Your selection does not have to be the most important release or the most admired release of that year (though it certainly can be), simply an album that grabs you and that you really love.

However, once an album is selected by a member, you must choose a different album.

Together we will compile quite the canon of "Great Music" and, who knows, maybe inspire each other to check out some new artists (or to revisit old forgotten classics).

This week - the albums of 2007Honorable mentions begin on Monday

No placeholders. You must post the artist and title followed by the album cover. You may edit your post to include a write-up or videos.

Sophomore album from my favorite Ska band of all time. Formerly Catch 22, these guys got so much better and even tighter when the core of the band started Street Light Manifesto. Super talented guys. Great intros, speed and tightness!

Out of the 4 albums I rate highly from this year this has to be the most likely to be played by me. Pretty sure Ed was screened the film and then wrote the album for it if I remember right. It just fits so well and definitely stuck with me.

Lots of decent to good albums this year, but only two really stood out to me as potential number 1s. Going with Against Me! New Wave.

There's some songs on here that are very "meh," but it contains a song that I never tire of hearing, and one of my favorite final songs on an album ever (The Ocean, wherein the singer publicly admits he has been dealing with gender identity issues, and no one noticed it lol).

So I won't lie, I have a ton of bias from '04 until...let's say 10 later since I was friends with a ton of local bands and actively doing things with them. At this point I had known these guys for a few years...by this point we had worked together on a couple one-off shows and I was almost their de facto videographer. In '06 they embarked on their first mini-tour and I was maxed out on vacation and my friend was in between engineering contracts so we thought it would be funny to drive from Boston to Detroit to see their first show...then Chicago...then...Madison I think? I don't know, it was a two week tour and my friend and I just drove and slept in the car, so my memories are fuzzy.

Anyway, after returning from that tour they started work on a new album. Their normal drummer was unavailable for this album (if I had to guess, this was when he was working on some form of degree at MIT) so they had Brian Viglione (Dresden Dolls, Violent Femmes, etc) sit in on drums for the album and supporting tour. The album itself was recorded over the course of a few days at Hi-N-Dry the studio space created by the late Mark Sandman of Morphine and I ended up going in after work for a few days to shoot behind the scenes stuff for them. So even though I haven't listened to this album in quite some time (sadly, it doesn't exist on vinyl) and without looking through the list of releases from this year I am fairly confident that this is the album that has the most personal meaning for me.

If this album were big enough to have had singles, this would have been one of them.

This is a take of Brian laying down the drums for that previous track. I do not recall how many times this was done or if this was the actual one used on the final recording, but if not it was certainly good enough to have been. This was one of the highlights of filming, though I'm a sucker for expressive drummers.

Fun fact: The first time I was introduced to anyone from this band was after a show at this artist run underground DIY venue and someone brought me to the kitchen and that is where I met Holly, the singer. Apparently after their set ended she decided to go into the kitchen of this place and just start cleaning up. That's good people right there.

This likely would have been the other single, were that a thing for this album.

Out of the 4 albums I rate highly from this year this has to be the most likely to be played by me. Pretty sure Ed was screened the film and then wrote the album for it if I remember right. It just fits so well and definitely stuck with me.

Hanson - The Walk (you weren't surprised even a little)
I really dislike the title track for this album. It is boring as shit. But in general this album is a case study in why I think Zac is the best and worst Hanson (in terms of songwriting/performing and I guess fan trolling, too). The title track is a slow drag in which Zac says "everyone waits on the walk" which I assume is death, or purgatory - the first single on the album was released to launch and promote their charity which raises money for a few causes in Africa including mother to cild HIV transmission and digging clean water wells. They were some of the first celebrities to travel to Africa with Blake Mycoskie on a shoe drop when TOMS shoes first launched, and they did a Hanson shoe almost a full year before U2 (yes, I have a pair, two even). But this is going way off track, and these aren't even the songs I wanted to talk about other than to say that they went through a phase where they sang about death, and dead children a lot. There was an EP right after this album that contains some more stuff that didn't make the album.

Now for the stuff that is on there that makes it special - without being a concept album, it had a whole feel that at the time felt different. It was the first album put out where the project was independent from start to finish. They owned all of the material and the process from start to finish. And while Zac has had writing credits on their previous albums, this is the album where he really started to put out some fantastic tunes. Below are the songs I have selected to highlight. Note that some are bonus tracks only released on the Japanese version of the album.
I was going to slip a Taylor song in there, but these are all jams. EDIT: I had to cut one of the great Zac leads because there was one too many, even before the one I said I didn't like. He has ballads I do like. It's not because it's slow.

An absolute dance-rock banger that kind of defines the mid-late 2000s in my book. The best album from a band that only releases great albums. The "Someone Great" > "All My Friends" combo is one of the best one-two punches on any album. Fite me.

So I won't lie, I have a ton of bias from '04 until...let's say 10 later since I was friends with a ton of local bands and actively doing things with them. At this point I had known these guys for a few years...by this point we had worked together on a couple one-off shows and I was almost their de facto videographer. In '06 they embarked on their first mini-tour and I was maxed out on vacation and my friend was in between engineering contracts so we thought it would be funny to drive from Boston to Detroit to see their first show...then Chicago...then...Madison I think? I don't know, it was a two week tour and my friend and I just drove and slept in the car, so my memories are fuzzy.

Anyway, after returning from that tour they started work on a new album. Their normal drummer was unavailable for this album (if I had to guess, this was when he was working on some form of degree at MIT) so they had Brian Viglione (Dresden Dolls, Violent Femmes, etc) sit in on drums for the album and supporting tour. The album itself was recorded over the course of a few days at Hi-N-Dry the studio space created by the late Mark Sandman of Morphine and I ended up going in after work for a few days to shoot behind the scenes stuff for them. So even though I haven't listened to this album in quite some time (sadly, it doesn't exist on vinyl) and without looking through the list of releases from this year I am fairly confident that this is the album that has the most personal meaning for me.

If this album were big enough to have had singles, this would have been one of them.

This is a take of Brian laying down the drums for that previous track. I do not recall how many times this was done or if this was the actual one used on the final recording, but if not it was certainly good enough to have been. This was one of the highlights of filming, though I'm a sucker for expressive drummers.

Fun fact: The first time I was introduced to anyone from this band was after a show at this artist run underground DIY venue and someone brought me to the kitchen and that is where I met Holly, the singer. Apparently after their set ended she decided to go into the kitchen of this place and just start cleaning up. That's good people right there.

This likely would have been the other single, were that a thing for this album.

Click to expand...

Checked out the first and last videos, I'm going to have to check out more of this.

Excellent pick. This was my runner-up for sure. This was one of those records that didn't leave my turntable for a week after the first time I played it. I like it just as much now as I did at its release. Overall this is a pretty loaded year for me with this record near the very top.